A Multi-pronged Strategy for Securing Internet Routing

By Henry Birge-Lee, Nick Feamster, Mihir Kshirsagar, Prateek Mittal, Jennifer Rexford

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is conducting an inquiry into how it can help protect against security vulnerabilities in the internet routing infrastructure. A number of large communication companies have weighed in on the approach the FCC should take. 

CITP’s Tech Policy Clinic convened a group of experts in information security, networking, and internet policy to submit an initial comment offering a public interest perspective to the FCC. This post summarizes our recommendations on why the government should take a multi-pronged strategy to promote security that involves incentives and mandates. Reply comments from the public are due May 11.

The core challenge in securing the internet routing infrastructure is that the original design of the network did not prioritize security against adversarial attacks. Instead, the original design focused on how to route traffic through decentralized networks with the goal of delivering information packets efficiently, while not dropping traffic. 

At the heart of this routing system is the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which allows independently-administered networks (Autonomous Systems or ASes) to announce reachability to IP address blocks (called prefixes) to neighboring networks. But BGP has no built-in mechanism to distinguish legitimate routes from bogus routes. Bogus routing information can redirect internet traffic to a strategic adversary, who can launch a variety of attacks, or the bogus routing can lead to accidental outages or performance issues. Network operators and researchers have been actively developing measures to counteract this problem.

At a high level, the current suite of BGP security measures depend on building systems to validate routes. But for these technologies to work, most participants have to adopt them or the security improvements will not be realized. In other words, it has many of the hallmarks of a “chicken and egg” situation. As a result, there is no silver bullet to address routing security.

Instead, we argue, the government needs a cross-layer strategy that embraces pushing different elements of the infrastructure to adopt security measures that protect legitimate traffic flows using a carrot-and-stick approach. Our comment identifies specific actions Internet Service Providers, Content Delivery Networks and Cloud Providers, Internet Exchange Points, Certificate Authorities, Equipment Manufacturers, and DNS Providers should take to improve security. We also recommend that the government funds and supports academic research centers that collect real-time data from a variety of sources that measure traffic and how it is routed across the internet.  

We anticipate several hurdles to our recommended cross-layer approach: 

First, to mandate the cross-layer security measures, the FCC has to have regulatory authority over the relevant players. And, to the extent a participant does not fall under the FCC’s authority, the FCC should develop a whole-of-government approach to secure the routing infrastructure.

Second, large portions of the internet routing infrastructure lie outside the jurisdiction of the United States. As such, there are international coordination issues that the FCC will have to navigate to achieve the security properties needed. That said, if there is a sufficient critical mass of providers who participate in the security measures, that could create a tipping point for a larger global adoption.

Third, the package of incentives and mandates that the FCC develops has to account for the risk that there will be recalcitrant small and medium sized firms who might undermine the comprehensive approach that is necessary to truly secure the infrastructure.

Fourth, while it is important to develop authenticated routes for traffic to counteract adversaries, there is an under-appreciated risk from a flipped threat model – the risk that an adversary takes control of an authenticated node and uses that privileged position to disrupt routing. There are no easy fixes to this threat – but an awareness of this risk can allow for developing systems to detect such actions, especially in international contexts.